The storms of life

by Richard L. Weaver II, Ph.D.

I remember vividly the circumstances surrounding my father’s death just about 16 years ago.  I remember divorces, retirement, and dealing with my wife’s mother’s death.  These are some of “the storms of life” that have affected my life.  Fortunately, in all the cases, I seemed to have (a judgment I am making in retrospect) the resources necessary to face and survive the storms.  It is only in retrospect now that I am able to look back and analyze how I survived.
    
What are our resources — on what can we depend — when we find ourselves faced with “the storms of life”?  We have the resources, and we prove that we have them time after time after time; however, daily preparation in building our resources is essential, and the more resources we accumulate over time, the more prepared we are to face the storms of life.  That is, our resources are enhanced, underscored, and buttressed when we have sufficiently prepared ourselves when times are good.  Ezra Pound said, “A slave is one who waits for someone else to come and free him.”  The point of this essay is how you can set yourself free — free to depend on yourself and your resources to face the storms of life.
    
Preparation is the key, but you must remember that quick cures seldom last.  That is, the kind of preparation advocated in this essay involves deep changes, and these changes take time and effort and cannot be done spur-of-the-moment or just when the storms hit.
    
Preparation is like an insurance policy.  You pay into it throughout your life, and on a daily basis, hoping, of course, that you will never have to use it.  But, during any storm of life, the insurance policy is there to cover you.  Some storms are worse than others so in some cases you will need to draw out more from the insurance policy than at other times.
    
How do you pay into this insurance policy?  Financially, you create a “rainy day fund” that you have available.  You may even make certain that your actual, real insurance policy for your automobiles and your house and belongings is paid up, current, and available.  That seems like an automatic, intuitive thing that everyone does almost without thinking.  (Most insurance companies make it very clear when premiums are due.)
    
There are many other ingredients (besides finances), and no one ingredient is necessarily better or more important than another.  They weigh differently in different people’s lives.  One may be sufficient, it is true, to get us through, but I would contend that it is probably the aggregate of ingredients working together that provide the assistance and support needed.
    
After finances, the second major ingredient is having a support group.  In a USA Today article, “Happiness is having friends at church” (USA Today, December 7, 2010, p. 7D), a study originally published in the December (2010) issue of the American Sociological Review by Chaeyoon Lim, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was reported.  The study’s conclusion, provided in the first paragraph of the USA Today article, states: “Attending religious services regularly and having close friends in the congregation are key to having a happier, more satisfying life . . .” (p. 7D).  The study does not report “what aspect of religiousness — church attendance, prayer, theology or spirituality — accounts for this level of life satisfaction”; however, the study does report that “the social aspect of religion and a shared religious connection built around identity and belonging” is a key factor.
    
What is amazing about Lim’s study is that “90% of the correlation between church attendance and life satisfaction can be explained if you have these close interactions” (p. 7D).  What a testimony for involved church attendance, and what a testimony, too, for having such close interactions when it comes to the storms of life.  They become your safety net.
    
Of course it doesn’t have to be just religion or religious connections that will provide the safety net when the storms occur.  Making certain you have established and continue to nourish your ties with friends, family, and neighbors as well as co-workers, business associates, and other community contacts is important as well.  These are the very people likely to come to your aid when the storms hit.  Isolation from these associations cannot offer similar outcomes.
    
There is a third area of preparation in addition to finances and people-to-people connections, however, and that involves staying informed.  You never know when having knowledge and information will prove essential.  No, you may not need it; however, survival knowledge or where to go for help may, indeed be all you need to know.  Broad bases of knowledge about how others have survived similar storms may be all that is needed.
    
Read widely, keep your eyes and ears open and alert, listen to the news, be aware of what other people say and do, and always stay informed, up-to-date, and enlightened.  Be the sharpest knife in the drawer, the brightest bulb in the fixture, and the highest point on the weather vane.
    
The fourth area of preparation has been a common theme in many of my essays, and there is a whole chapter on it in my book You Rules - Caution: Contents Leads to a Better Life and that is to be physically prepared.  Remember, too, that physical preparation closely relates to mental preparation.
    
Physical stamina is important because it allows you to do your best when facing the storms of life.  Your regular exercising, proper nutrition and body sustenance, as well as your sleep and conditioning will not just help you to be physically fit when a storm hits, but it will help as well to keep you thinking at your best.
    
Thinking at your best may mean seeking professional medical, psychological, financial, legal, or spiritual help when you realize they may be your best resource.  When you are in doubt, you should never endanger yourself by relying only on yourself and neglecting such experts.  In these cases, too, it is important to remember that it is how you go about choosing the experts and how you use what they have to offer that counts.
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At the website Army Well-Being there is a wonderful essay by Rob Schuette, Fort McCoy Public Affairs, “Spiritual resiliency helps soldiers weather life's traumas.”  Schuette ends his essay saying, “People can prepare themselves to overcome traumatic events by developing self-confidence, leadership, personal strength, spiritual growth and an appreciation of life.”

At Yahoo! Answers one writer pours out his life in a piece entitled, “After trauma I have literally nothing to do with my life have nothing left and start over continuously..?”  What is interesting here is that, first, you will be drawn in to the writer’s plight.  Second, read the responses that readers have made.  There is some of what I have written about in my essay, but it is also said that there is no way to prepare for such intense trauma.  Read it for yourself; you’ll be glad you did.
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Copyright October, 2011, by And Then Some Publishing, L.L.C.